14th Congress of the Brazilian Transplantation Society and the 14th Congress of the Luso-Brazilian Transplantation SocietyOrgan donationImplementing Activities Developed by the Organ Transplantation Academic Society of the Hospital Dom Vicente Scherer: A

- There is inadequate knowledge about organ donation among health professionals.
- Organ donation and transplantation is not adequately approached during graduation.
- Academic societies are important in the learning process of health students.

BackgroundThe number of academic societies has been growing significantly in Brazilian universities, offering an extra opportunity for the development of educational activities and research. Because organ donation and transplantation is an area still insufficiently approached during the graduation of health professionals, we evaluated how academic societies might be a valuable tool.MethodsParticipants of the course promoted by the Organ Transplantation Academic Society of the Hospital Dom Vicente Scherer were evaluated through the use of a questionnaire and cognitive tests with 16 multiple-choice questions about topics approached during the course, before and after the lectures. Topics approached consisted of a general introduction about transplantation in Brazil, brain death, organ allocation and removal, post-transplant follow-up, and clinical cases.ResultsOf the 45 participants, 30 answered the tests at both times. The subjects were students of medicine, nursing, and phonoaudiology; 93.3% were organ donors, 84.6% said their families knew about this decision, and 65% had relatives who were organ donors. The mean score of correct answers was 7.63 of 16 before the activities and 12.54 after activities, demonstrating a 64.4% improvement.ConclusionsThe improvement in performance suggests that academic societies are a useful resource for educational purposes and for students to get a deeper insight about organ donation and transplantation.